by Beth Moran
He was on first-name terms with police superintendents, politicians and leading figures in industry. Ellen told me that last year he’d spent New Year’s Eve with the National Security Advisor. He often worked with Kiko’s husband, Adam, when things at the charity got sticky, which was how he’d heard about the book club. He frequently disappeared for days at a time at very short notice. Yet, in the past two years, he’d only missed two book-club nights. A third time he turned up late, with black paint smeared across his face and a three-inch gash along his forearm held together with duct tape. He calmly discussed the historical crime novel, drank coffee, ate chilli popcorn and patted Florence before disappearing back into the night.
But just get that sneaky, badass, fearless warrior who vacuum-packed villains for breakfast in the same room as Sarah, and see his muscles tremble. He swallowed, picked up the tub, put it down again.
‘My job can be quite stressful. And violent. Leaving it behind, to switch back to being, well, human again, can be hard. So, for my challenge I thought I’d do something homely. The opposite of kicking a vicious psychopath in the windpipe. I made these.’
He opened the box with his battle-scarred hands, and tipped it up to show rows of cupcakes, half iced pink and covered in white roses, the rest blue and topped with miniature rainbows.
‘They’re gorgeous!’ Ashley cooed. ‘How did you manage those teeny flowers?’
‘It took me a few goes.’ He shrugged.
I could imagine the mounds of rejected cupcakes Jamie had been living on for the past month.
He offered them round, and we all spent the next few minutes ooh-ing and mmm-ing at how light and delicious they were.
‘You should sell these,’ I said to Sarah, who was currently licking the icing off her fingers.
‘Too right.’ She groaned in delight. Jamie pulled at his T-shirt as though the collar was suddenly way too tight. ‘But there are food hygiene laws and stuff. You have to register your premises and get them inspected and all that.’
‘Jamie could make them here,’ Ellen said.
‘I hardly think Jamie wants to be confronted with my first-thing-in-the-morning face and make cakes when he’s got his own massively successful business to run.’
‘I wouldn’t mind,’ he said, eyes flicking over to Sarah and back. ‘That is, of course, if you like them. I mean, we could try it, see how it goes.’
Please say yes! Everyone else beamed telepathic messages over to Sarah’s side of the table.
She shook her head in befuddlement. ‘You’re like Batman. Why would you want to do this?’
We all held our breaths, waiting for Jamie to tell Sarah even a hint of the reason why he wanted to bake cakes at the crack of dawn in her cramped café.
‘It makes a nice change,’ he said to a blob on the tablecloth. ‘And I’ve been considering a new career. One that doesn’t involve smashing people’s heads against concrete pillars or wriggling through drainage pipes with a ferret’s teeth embedded in my ankle-bone.’
‘Oh, go on, then.’ Sarah took a huge bite out of another cake. ‘Come along next time you’re free and we’ll give it a go.’
Ashley’s challenge was to get Hillary West along to the book club. This was greeted with a barrage of groans, but she dug her heels in. ‘I’m not writing to her publishers any more. I’m going to find out where she lives and go straight to the woman herself! That will involve all manner of new skills, and you can’t say it isn’t a challenge.’
‘Okay,’ Ellen agreed. ‘If you can come up with some adventures along the way, we’ll allow it for now.’
My turn. I took a big gulp of water and sat up straighter. ‘My challenge is finding out about my family. As you know, a few weeks ago I moved into my grandmother’s cottage. What I haven’t told you is that I never met her. I know nothing about her or my grandfather. And I don’t know why. It’s weird to live in a place where strangers know more about my own family than I do. But for today, I’ll start by telling you why even moving here has been a challenge. And, believe me, just talking about this is a challenge in itself.’
I told them that I’d left my job suddenly, but not why. About my sister’s extravagant living arrangements – the luxury apartment and the housekeeper, Claudia. The thousand-pound shoes she’d passed on to me. The super-expensive restaurants Richard had taken me to. The relentless and mindless waste.
And that I’d gladly left with one suitcase and a rucksack, and less than a hundred pounds in cash.
I described my first night sleeping in the car, and those that had followed in the bath. I didn’t think people knew whether to laugh or feel horrified as I talked about the bugs, the smell, the dirt, the Hoard. Washing clothes by hand and living off cold food that I had no way to keep cold. I told them about Mannequin Diana and the squillions of mice I’d called the Borrowers.
That the only thing tethering me to earth seemed to be the cottage. The hope that I had a past, a family, a point. And my dreams of making the cottage into a home again, and finally achieving something.
‘You have a home here, Jenny,’ Ellen said. Her voice was strong but her eyes were brimming. ‘Home is more than four walls.’
‘I know that.’ I nodded. ‘And you make me feel at home in a way my parents and sister never did. But if I left next month, you wouldn’t miss me, not really.’
She opened her mouth to protest, but I carried on. ‘I’m honestly not looking for sympathy. I’m just explaining that my challenge was to, well, find a home. But it’s changed. It’s now to make a home. To make the most of where I’ve ended up, even with all the mess and the broken stuff and the questions and the mistakes. To make a story of my life I can be proud of. It’s tough, but it’s making me stronger. And I’ve never, not once, felt strong before. So, I’m enjoying it. I’m glad to be here. Glad I got fired for punching my sister in the face.’
‘You did WHAT?’ Ashley squealed.
‘That’s another month’s chapter.’ I rolled my eyes in a devil-may-care manner. ‘Who’s next?’
Frances was next.
Oh, my goodness.
She was also last.
How could Kiko possibly talk about her dreams of mountain-climbing and Ellen tell us funny stories about her midwifery course after that?
‘Following some thorough and most unpleasant investigations into my bowels, some doctor with sweaty hands and a twitchy face has decided I’ve got cancer. I don’t know why. I feel fine. Or as fine as I can hope to feel sixteen years shy of a century. Now, please don’t interrupt with your murmurs of condolence and sobs and sniffles. It’s hardly big news to be told I’m going to die in a year or so.’
‘Can they do anything?’ Kiko asked, face ashen.
‘They offered me chemo, commencing next week.’
‘Well, we’ll help with that, of course,’ Kiko said. ‘Drive you to the hospital, and make sure you have whatever you need.’
‘That’s awfully kind of you, but won’t be necessary.’ Frances pounded her stick on the floor a couple of times. Florence chuffed in response. ‘I do not intend to waste precious weeks being carted back and forth to hospital, vomiting into a cardboard basin and trembling with exhaustion, full of drips and wires and unnatural holes.
‘I’m not afraid of going to heaven. Big Mike has been waiting for me long enough, and quite frankly I’m getting tired of it down here. Why would I pump myself full of poison to try and delay that by a few months? I don’t have children to miss me. No chemotherapy. I will accept medication to ease unpleasant symptoms if and when it becomes necessary.’
‘But…’
‘For goodness’ sake!’ Frances barked. ‘No buts! I’ve made my decision.’
‘You think you’re immortal!’ Ashley wailed.
‘I am!’ Frances said. ‘But this body isn’t. And I’m more than ready for the new body that the Good Lord promised in the next life.’
What could we say? Frances had nursed her husband, Big Mike, through lung cancer. She
knew what saying yes – or no – to treatment might mean.
‘I wish I’d not found out so I could avoid the sympathy and the appointments and the whispering. But there’s no point trying to keep a secret round here. And I might be needing a few favours later on, depending on how things pan out.
‘In the meantime, I plan to wear this body out completely before I go. To squeeze what life out of it I can. So, that is my challenge. Wearing it out before the cancer does. Next week I’ve signed up to go open-water swimming for starters.’
‘You could climb Mount Everest with me!’ Kiko blurted.
The rest of us nodded our agreement. Nobody in that room believed for one second that Kiko was going to climb Mount Everest.
‘Well, whatever you need. Just ask,’ Sarah said, tipping her head back in a pointless attempt to stop the tears spilling out. ‘And we’re really sorry, Frances. What shitty news.’
‘Yes.’ Frances nodded briskly. ‘Shitty. Literally and metaphorically, as Lucille would say.’
Lucille said nothing. Like the rest of us, any words were blocked by the lump of sadness and frustration and love clogging up her throat.
That was not the last time we would cry with Frances. But, boy, in the weeks to come we would laugh with her a whole lot more.
16
‘Stop it!’ I hummed with irritation, anger, humiliation and a smidgen of joy.
‘Excuse me?’ Mack’s face appeared, dark and foreboding in the forest shadows.
‘How many times do I have to tell you to stop this?’ I was flapping my arms around like a crazy woman. The kind of person who named the mice infesting her home.
‘I don’t particularly appreciate people hammering on my door in the evening and yelling at me.’ Mack looked past me into the night beyond and huffed out a long sigh. ‘I don’t like being ordered about, and I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. So… bye.’ He started to shut the door.
‘The fridge!’ I squawked. ‘I’ve seen your house now so you can’t pretend you have random spare household items lying around. I insist you take it back.’
Mack opened the door again, his brow wrinkled. I pointed at the tiny fridge, which I’d dragged over balanced on one of those ancient shopping trolleys on wheels.
‘You insist?’ he asked.
‘Yes! I’m not going to listen to your explanation about how this is somehow doing you a favour, blah blah blah. So, don’t even go there.’
‘Okay.’
‘I’m earning now. I can pay for the things I need myself. In my own good time. Perhaps I want to choose my own fridge.’
‘Good point.’
‘You’ll have to take it back.’ I started trying to push the fridge over his front step, but it was too heavy. Plus, Mack was standing in the way.
‘Are you going to help?’ I asked, glasses askew, hair stuck to my forehead, aware I might have been slightly pungent after a full-on day of gardening, cycling and manhandling a fridge onto a shopping trolley (seriously, much harder than I expected).
‘No.’
I looked at him, baffled. ‘Why not?’
‘I suggest you take another look at the fridge.’ He went to close the door, only pausing to say, ‘And next time, try opening with “Hi, Mack, how are you?”’
The door slammed shut. Muttering and fuming, I had another look at the fridge. White. Shiny. A door… A fridge was a fridge, right? Some shelves inside. A note in the butter compartment… Oh. A note.
Jenny,
This has been sitting in my garage since we got a new kitchen. I’ve checked it still works. Hope it helps you feel at home,
Love
Kiko xx
I pulled the fridge back across the yard. In half the time, due to the powerful propulsion of my mortifying humiliation.
The next day, as soon as I’d dropped the kids off, I used a stash of ten-pound notes from my kitchen appliance envelope to buy milk, cheddar cheese, fresh juice, bacon, a packet of mince, salad and the second cheapest bottle of white wine in the shop.
This time the slow-cooker leftovers went in the fridge. I think a few grateful tears might have dripped in there, too, so I didn’t bother adding any salt. I did, however, lug across the yard a brown leather armchair I’d spent the previous weekend cleaning and polishing.
Mack answered first knock again. I think he was getting used to my interruptions. I hoped he didn’t hate them. A five-minute chat with an annoying neighbour must be better than no chat with anyone, ever.
‘I brought you a chair.’
His beard frowned.
‘By way of an apology.’ I gestured at the chair.
He glanced down and went back to looking at me – as if waiting for something.
‘Oh, right!’ I assumed a friendly grin. ‘Hi, Mack, and how are you?’ I then realised the grin was way too big and grinny, so I reduced it to what I hoped was a sprightly, neighbourly smile.
He closed his eyes in an extra-long blink. ‘Are you going to start bringing me your Hoard now? Transfer it here one piece at a time?’
‘Everything that isn’t burnable. That’s the plan.’ I wheeled the chair forwards until it bumped against his knees. ‘You have one chair. I have many, many chairs. I thought you would like this one. I promise I won’t bring any – many – more.’
He rolled the chair into the kitchen, stopping to crouch down and wipe the muddy wheels with a cloth. ‘I don’t need two chairs. I don’t exactly have many visitors.’
‘I’m a visitor. Look – ta-da! You need it already.’ I plonked myself in the seat, accidentally brushing his hair with my knee in the process.
Mack looked up, brow only inches from my thigh, and his eyes locked with mine. We’d been in close contact before. This was different. A spark of something – chemistry, electricity, attraction? – zapped like fire racing up a fuse. Oh, my, his eyes were mesmerising. For a long second my heart seemed to hover between beats. Then an owl hooted outside, breaking the moment. Mack scooted away so fast he nearly fell backwards. Still in a crouching position, he blinked at the slate tiles. Was it my imagination or was he breathing harder than normal?
Ah, no. The heavy breathing appeared to be me. I slowly sucked in a lungful of air, as quietly as possible. Tried to control letting it out again. Stuck on a bright smile he couldn’t see anyway, adjusted my already perfectly centred glasses and stood up.
‘Anyway, I’ll let you get back to work.’ I slunk to the door. ‘Enjoy the chair!’
‘Yeah, thanks.’ He kept his eyes on the floor, hands wringing the cloth in his hand. I continued my slink right on home.
‘Why was I slinking anyway?’ I asked Diana, one small(ish) glass of wine later. ‘I accidentally bumped his head, a 100 per cent non-erotic part of the body, with my knee. Which is, like, a 30 per cent erotic body part at most. And even if there’d been something more in the moment, I’m young and single. He’s not-too-old and single. I’m a not entirely hideous woman. He’s a pleasingly toned (all right, Diana, completely gorgeous) man with meltingly dreamy eyes and quite possibly a nice face hiding under the bushiness. I’m lonely… he’s lonely… what’s the harm in a little frisson?’
‘This is the harm,’ was my interpretation of Diana’s reply. ‘A brief millisecond of bodily contact with the nearest available male and you’re in imaginational hyperdrive. This is what got you into trouble last time, grasping at the first man who showed you any interest.’
‘Excuse me!’ I brandished the wine in indignation. ‘Richard was the one doing all the grasping!’
‘Even so,’ Diana continued, nodding sagely (or, at least, she would have been if she had possessed a flexible neck), ‘you promised to stay away from romantic interactions with men. At least until you’re all straight and sorted. And isn’t there a saying about men and your own doorstep?’
‘I am staying away! I’m just being friendly. I’m not exactly swamped with friends. Or neighbours. I’m sat here talking to a mannequin!’
Dia
na got in a huff then and refused to talk any more. I finished my wine, read a few chapters of an appalling novel I’d unearthed about a grumpy, solitary cowboy falling in love with a feisty saloon owner, and went to bed. Of course, I barely thought about Mack. Didn’t dream about him, or listen out for the odd creak through the walls. Didn’t imagine what he’d look like in a cowboy hat. Didn’t at all wonder if he lay, only a couple of feet away, thinking about me (and possibly not even in a bad way). Urgh! Tomorrow night I was going to read a detective story.
As it turned out, the next night I had something completely different on my mind…
That morning an invitation plopped through my letterbox.
Initially, the green and red design appeared to be a very late or even earlier Christmas card. And then I looked inside.
I had been cordially invited to a Christmas wedding. In July. Because, the card explained, ‘Our love makes us feel like it’s Christmas every day!’
Bleugh. As far as I was concerned Christmas once a year was one day too many. And now my twin and ex-lover had decided to extend it to July, and throw in their wedding just to add the icing on the fake-Christmas cake.
Acceptances and the name of my plus one needed to be sent to Richard’s PA by the end of April. No mention of declining. Which was one more reason to decline.
I put the invitation into a kitchen drawer and went to dig up some more brambles. Arrogant, selfish, man-stealing sisters and slimy, sneaky, double-crossing exes were like brambles. Even when you thought you’d dug them all out of your life, moved away, stopped searching for them on Google, given up hoping they’d contact you, they popped back up again with a presumptuous, sickening invitation.
